Going from Tigrinya to Telugu (తెలుగు) has a composite linguistic distance of 87% (heuristic estimate). Below is the dimension-by-dimension breakdown.
Shared vocabulary, cognates, and loanwords.
Morphology, syntax, word order, cases.
Shared sounds and phoneme inventory.
Ge'ez → Telugu
Afro-Asiatic ↔ Dravidian
The 5 languages with the lowest linguistic distance from Tigrinya:
A quick 3-question check between Tigrinya and Telugu. No signup.